Optic Health = Mental Health?
Written by: Nicole Bryant, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Within the Black community, mental health has a stigma. For generations, Black women and men have been taught to pray, go to church, and seek pastoral counseling for mental health struggles. Unfortunately, Black people are largely ignorant as to how mental health has a direct impact on medical health.
Many of my patients don’t know the effects of trauma. Trauma can be debilitating and affects the body not just a person’s emotions. Many African Americans are vicariously traumatized daily. Unfortunately, despite the inhumane experiences that many African Americans experience, many African Americans turn to pastoral counseling rather than physiological therapies through a licensed mental health clinician. Perhaps the African American’s eye holds the key to opening their own mental health hygiene and wellness.
Glaucoma makes African Americans 15x more likely to suffer from vision impairment.
Glaucoma is the leading cause of blindness in African Americans. Stress, high blood pressure, and diabetes affect eyesight. African Americans are more prone to vision loss and 1/4 report fair or poor eyesight. When the functional vision field collapses, we lose our peripheral vision. This is impacted by ongoing stress. The superior colliculi, which is a highly emotional area in the brain, facilitate 20% of visual information. In my doctoral program, I wish to explore more through research how the human eye is interconnected to the health of the brain and mental processes. Is glaucoma a pandemic within the Black community?
Brainspotting is a neurological technique that can have psychological benefits. With the use of the eyes, Brainspotting can assist in organizing brain activity in depression, anxiety, and trauma to achieve post-traumatic growth and relief. Can the neurological technique call Brainspotting aid in lowering the risk of glaucoma and accomplishing better mental health outcomes for Black people? I wish to further explore the above-mentioned research as to whether the eyesight of the African American is to become extinct due to stigma and failure to receive mental health care.
Nicole Bryant, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Nicole is a Certified Brainspotting Practitioner and has completed a study on the fundamentals of Neuroscience. Via Harvard University, She was able to explore sensation, perception, and the physiology of functional regions of the brain. As a result, Nicole incorporates a trauma-informed care approach in psychotherapy teaching the benefits of Psychophysiology healing as it relates to coping and recovering from complex trauma.
